In my time working with older and more experienced Pagans, one thing I have found is that most of them talk about “shadow work”. The idea always bothered me because I mistook “shadow work” for doing energy work for negative outcomes. I have recently discovered that shadow work is getting to know and spend time with the parts of your personality that you do not necessarily like.
I have never personally felt the need to do shadow work. I just figured out why. I spent about 15 years of my life struggling with depression. Only about 8 of those years overlapped with my time as a Pagan. When I was depressed, I spent my life on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis with my shadow self. I spent all of that time being a self-loathing, pathetic-feeling, emotionally-unstable wreck. Most people do shadow work to get to know their whole selves. I had to do light work go get to know my whole self. I had to claw my way bit-by-bit out of my shadow self, struggling towards the light.
Other people, who have lived much of their life in the light tend to repress any negative or “icky” emotion. Some examples of “icky” emotions might be fear, emotional pain, jealousy, sadness, grief, regret, worry, a sense of unfairness, and negative feelings towards yourself or your body. I am kind of an expert on these types of emotions as I lived with them for a long time. If you repress any of these negative emotions regularly, you may find yourself expressing anger or rage (anger’s ugly cousin). You may find yourself crying for no apparent reason. Anxiety, depression, and/or panic attacks could occur. You may have problems sleeping or over-sleeping. You may have problems under-eating or over-eating. You might have problems focusing or focusing on only one thing. These can all be manifestations of ignoring and repressing these “icky” emotions. They also might be problems involving a psychological disorder, so make sure to get yourself checked out with a psychologist if you think that might be the case. Often the two go hand-in-hand.
As someone who lived for so long with my shadow-self, the best way I have found is take a very Buddhist approach to my emotions. I acknowledge the emotion for what it is. I allow that I am feeling it. I do my best to not react to it while trying to feel the emotion fully. That part is the most difficult because the strongest emotions make me want to act, to want to take some sort of action, just to end the horribleness of the feeling. I have found that the more I allow myself to experience the feelingness of that emotion (for want of a better term), the less it effects me and the less I want to do something to react to it.
Anyone interested in doing shadow work, here is a great website which includes some great information, including step-by-step exercises: https://scottjeffrey.com/shadow-work/.
Do any of you have experience with shadow work? What would you recommend to someone who is new to it?
This is a lot like my experience with shadow work, although I needed a lot more help, professional and otherwise, to realize the kind of acceptance you’re referring to. It’s a process. A big win was realizing I could survive my emotions.
As far as suggestions to people who are closer to the beginning of that, everyone’s got a unique road. I would say find whatever kind of help you think you need, and then get a little more. Although no one can do this work for us, we don’t have to do that work completely alone.
I didn’t fully understand my shadow work until 2012 came and went. It was my own personal apocalypse of panic attacks, unexpressed rage, hunger, curiosity, naivity, foolish bravery, and all sorts of aspects exploding out that I’m still recovering from and picking up the pieces. As insightful and over-analytical as I can be, there is still experiences that will result from not knowing or seeing some part of one’s self. Even then you can predict your actions and still behave differently and surprise yourself.
I think it was chosing to woek with my shadow side that I went too deep and essentially broke myself. It’s hard to rebuild a sense of self in your late 30s when people around you still see you as the old self. This is why life crisies(?) often thwart loved ones into worrying. They will be uncomfortable when you try to change who you are and how they see you. I suppose this is why some people literally move to a new location… to drop their old lives.
So like you said: therapy is a good idea. Especially before beginning shadow work! There is reason to warn people to becareful which doors they open… sometimes it’s a floodgate you cannot close.
Someone should write a book or blog post ::wink:: about light-work. What kinds of techniques, rituals, meditations, etc. can one do to fight/accept their darkness? (Aside from regular therapy/check-ins.)